Saints release Warford, opens door for Cesar Ruiz to start
Title says it all. Saints release of Larry Warford frees up cap space for the Saints, but gives Cesar Ruiz the chance to start on a championship-contending team right off the bat. I think he is good enough to start in the NFL, even for the difficult position of center. Good luck Cesar and other NFL-bound Wolverines.
https://www.nola.com/sports/saints/article_0245bb58-8966-11ea-973d-1f74ca1f87f2.html
Hail Cesar
As a Saints fan... geaux Blue!
Getting first team reps with Drew Brees is going to be great for Cesar, who seems like an awesome dude. Very happy for him.
The Saints need to “load management” Brees. He’s been superb in the first half of seasons lately but has faded down the stretch. I could see a lot more Taysom Hill this year
For backup QB, Jameis Winston would be in before Taysom Hill. Taysom is a gadget player but he's not a QB. Saints put in Teddy Bridgewater over Taysom when Brees went down.
Could not disagree more. Taysom is the backup, but Jameis is there because you can't have a team with a 41 year old QB and a backup who plays RB/WR. Jamies is depth, and they will certainly find a way to use him, but Taysom is the future which is why they didn't draft someone or keep Teddy.
Choosing Taysom Hill as the future of a franchise would be so dumb, I'd almost expect the Lions or Browns to do it.
You'd essentially be punting on all that offensive talent they currently have for a 31 or 32 year old with less than 50 career passing *attempts*.
They didn't keep Teddy because he chose to leave, because he wanted to start for a team, and had played well enough to earn a spot, not just sit around waiting for Brees to retire.
Remember when the lions wasted a high pick on warford
He was a third round pick that became a good starter. A big part of why the Lions lost him is because they couldn't afford to keep him anymore. IIRC he was the best OL for them for a few years before he went to the Saints. The high pick they wasted on a guard was Laken Tomlinson.
Actually, the only reason why Warford left the Lions is he hated the OL coach, Ron Prince. He would not come back to the Lions as long he was with the Lions. Money isn't the reason why Warford left but it played a minor role.
Yeah, the Lions let Warford and Reiff walk and turned around and dumped the same amount of money it would have taken to keep those two on Wagner and Lang. Not a great tradeoff IMO.
Sadly Laken has turned into one of the better OG in the NFL for the 49ers
Wow. There must be cap reasons why the Saints would release a high performing player like Warford (Pro Bowler every year with the Saints) but still, they must really think highly of Cesar to do this.
Drafted Ruiz, Drafted McCoy last year, signed Peat as a FA. Thats a big investment in the interior OL and a big cap savings in dumping Warford. One of those 4 was going to sit the bench which just didn't make sense from a roster management standpoint.
Let's hope he makes the most of it and lands the starting job.
I think this was the plan all along..
Makes sense. You don’t draft an interior lineman in the first round if you don’t plan on them to start right away. You can get starter level guards and centers in the 3rd and 4th rounds. Since they felt so highly about Ruiz, it’s not surprising they made space for him to start immediately
Warford was a guard and the Saints drafted a center last year so he might be starting at OG.
The coach said they might move the current starting center to guard but haven't decided yet.
Maybe going pro was a good call.
The day after he was drafted the Saints has a welcome billboard for him outside the super dome. Would be great if all wolverines make their teams.
Good for Cesar. That would make three Wolverine starting centers in the NFL - Ruiz, Glasgow, and Cole.
Center U!!
1st rounder should likely start esp offensive line. May take the same route Lions did with Ragnow meaning year one at guard and move him to center year two.
Probably don't want to put too much on a guy in his rookie year plus Warford was a guard as well and may plug him right in his spot.
The quote from Sean Payton says it all:
"Obviously, we think one of them is going to be a guard, because we weren't drafting someone that high to come in and be a backup," Saints coach Sean Payton said after Ruiz was drafted, adding that Warford was "gonna have to compete."
Good for him. Kid will represent us well.
1st round draft picks always start. This just confirms that.